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U.S. troops may be heartened to know that a Belcamp, Md., company is using some of the latest technology to check, double-check, and triple-check the efficacy of their body armor and helmets. Chesapeake Testing, of Belcamp, Md., bought the $1.2 million CT scanner a few months ago and is just starting to incorporate it in their testing of body and vehicle armor, helmets, projectiles and other equipment used by the U.S. military and law enforcement. The 40-plus person company operates a independent lab for testing personal protection equipment made by manufacturers.

A bill that would ban gathering of biometric data from school children in Maryland - including information culled from the palm scanners that drew protest in Carroll County last year - is slated for a hearing Wednesday in Annapolis. Senate Bill 855, proposed by State Sen. Joseph M. Getty, a Republican who represents part of Carroll and Baltimore counties, would prohibit public school boards from collecting biometric information, defined as "fingerprint, vocal and facial characteristics; and any other physical characteristics used for the purpose of electronically identifying that individual with a high degree of certainty.

A unique industrial CT X-ray scanning capability to analyze or inspect the construction and performance of a product in 3-dimension - including many components used on the battlefield - was unveiled at Chesapeake Testing in Harford County Thursday. The scanner was demonstrated during an open house at the Belcamp company attended by Harford County officials, representatives of the business community and Aberdeen Proving Ground and Congressman C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersburger. According to Chesapeake Testing, the new scanner is the only one of its kind in the United States and just one of three in operation in the world.

After a couple months of paying for lunch with their palms, students at 10 Carroll County schools are going back to buying pizza and tots using less Bond-like methods. While parent concerns about privacy led their superintendent to hit the breaks on the PalmSecure technology , they can expect to be asked for their biometrics again - and again and again - as they grow older, and even to willingly pay (whatever the method) to give them up. Thanks in no small part to Hollywood , security is the first application many of us consider when we think about biometrics, or measuring or analyzing biological data.

Instead of paying for their lunches with crumpled dollar bills and loose change, students in Carroll County schools are having their palms scanned in a new check-out system - raising concerns from some parents that their children's privacy is being violated. The county is one of the first localities in Maryland to use the PalmSecure system, in which children from kindergarten to 12th grade place their hands above an infrared scanner. It identifies unique palm and vein patterns, and converts the image into an encrypted numeric algorithm that records a sale.

Even without opening the box, one can guess that the new Apple color scanner is not flawless. If it were, someone at Apple Computer Inc. might have used it to scan in a bunch of $20s and $50s (the new $100 bills are harder to counterfeit) and then send them to a color laser printer to help offset the company's financial losses.Wait! Only kidding. It is illegal for anyone but the government and certain Internet start-up companies to manufacture money.But the new scanner, formally named the Apple Color One Scanner 600/27, is good enough to inspire such thoughts.

PrimeFilm scanner makes quality images at a reasonable price Dedicated slide and negative film scanners have cost $400 or more in the past. But Pacific Image Electronics has broken that price barrier by offering such a scanner for $200 that will turn your old-fashioned media into digital media. The device (which comes in several colors) connects to your computer through a USB port and has an optical resolution of 1,800 dpi with 36-bit color. CyberView scanner software comes with the PrimeFilm 1800u.

Combining a scanner and printer is a neat trick, but combining high-resolution printing and scanning can be a crowd-pleaser, especially if you don't have acres of desk space for multiple peripherals. At $180, Lexmark's X85 multifunction machine is reason enough for home-office owners to jump for a bit of joy. Its printer output is fantastic, with great photo quality (at resolutions up to 4,800-by-1,200 dots per inch) that stands up to images from some of the better photo inkjet printers on the market.

TRANSFORMING words on paper to words in computer files keeps getting more ambitious and more accurate without quite achieving perfection.Omnipage Pro for Windows 95, the latest optical character recognition (OCR) software from the Caere Corp., may be the best example of the genre's capabilities and limitations. With a good scanner and a clear original copy, the program can turn a page of printed text into an editable computer file with almost uncanny accuracy, right down to boldface, italics and column formatting.

The CanoScan D1250U2F ($200) may have too many numbers in its name, but that's about its only fault. While the scanner is a solid performer with pictures, colorful graphic images and text documents, what makes it a standout is the speed with which you can scan. The D1250U2F is one of the handful of devices exploiting the new Universal Serial Bus 2.0 port standard that allows for 480 Mbps transfers of data. (It works with USB 1.1 ports found on most computers, but it's actually slower than other scanners in its class when used with the old USB standard.

Carroll County school officials have discontinued use of a cafeteria checkout system with palm-scan technology after protests from parents who said the system violated their children's privacy. School Superintendent Stephen Guthrie announced his decision Wednesday to halt use of the system, called PalmSecure, and to ask officials to look at other options. His announcement came after a meeting with County Commissioner Doug Howard, who cited concerns among parents who worried about possible security breaches.

Instead of paying for their lunches with crumpled dollar bills and loose change, students in Carroll County schools are having their palms scanned in a new check-out system - raising concerns from some parents that their children's privacy is being violated. The county is one of the first localities in Maryland to use the PalmSecure system, in which children from kindergarten to 12th grade place their hands above an infrared scanner. It identifies unique palm and vein patterns, and converts the image into an encrypted numeric algorithm that records a sale.

U.S. troops may be heartened to know that a Belcamp, Md., company is using some of the latest technology to check, double-check, and triple-check the efficacy of their body armor and helmets. Chesapeake Testing, of Belcamp, Md., bought the $1.2 million CT scanner a few months ago and is just starting to incorporate it in their testing of body and vehicle armor, helmets, projectiles and other equipment used by the U.S. military and law enforcement. The 40-plus person company operates a independent lab for testing personal protection equipment made by manufacturers.

The days of using two-dimensional X-rays to analyze body armor, troop helmets and projectiles have just been put behind Chesapeake Testing. That's because Chesapeake, a small company with its own firing ranges and ballistics analysis equipment, has moved into 3D. The firm invested a few million dollars building out its capacity for the next generation in materials analysis: powerful CT scan technology. The Belcamp company this year acquired a 225-450kV microfocus X-ray and computer tomography system — one of only three in the world made by its manufacturer, Nikon.

A unique industrial CT X-ray scanning capability to analyze or inspect the construction and performance of a product in 3-dimension - including many components used on the battlefield - was unveiled at Chesapeake Testing in Harford County Thursday. The scanner was demonstrated during an open house at the Belcamp company attended by Harford County officials, representatives of the business community and Aberdeen Proving Ground and Congressman C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersburger. According to Chesapeake Testing, the new scanner is the only one of its kind in the United States and just one of three in operation in the world.

Early patrons to the Preakness found themselves locked out right out of the gate. A glitch at the 8 a.m. opening prevented tickets from being scanned in. About 100 people anxiously waited for a fix, which came promptly at 8:11 a.m. Sun photographer Gene Sweeney Jr. reported that one man appeared angry, but the rest streamed into the track without a problem.

Early patrons to the Preakness found themselves locked out right out of the gate. A glitch at the 8 a.m. opening prevented tickets from being scanned in. About 100 people anxiously waited for a fix, which came promptly at 8:11 a.m. Sun photographer Gene Sweeney Jr. reported that one man appeared angry, but the rest streamed into the track without a problem.

As more and more computer peripherals are released that use a Universal Serial Bus, or USB, port, I am more and more impressed with the technology. I've sworn off using the poky serial and cantankerous parallel ports forever. So should you. As the year goes on, you'll see more computers that don't even have these "legacy" connections. There are quite a few already, including Dell Computer Corp.'s Web PC and Compaq Computer Corp.'s iPaq and Presario EZ 2200. Folks who buy these computers will need to get printers, scanners and other components that have a USB connection.

Anne Arundel County sheriff's deputies will soon add a portable wireless fingerprint scanner to their crime-fighting tools to help quickly determine how much of a threat a person may pose and whether the person is wanted by other law enforcement agencies. Sheriff Ronald S. Bateman said the handheld tool will help deputies identify people faster when deputies are trying to serve protective orders, warrants and eviction notices. "This really gives you a chance to say, 'You are who you say you are — or you're not,'" he said.

Inside a tiny trailer outside the Fort Avenue Merritt Athletic Club, a 56-year-old chief financial officer stripped, down to a spandex swimsuit. Out of his office uniform — tweed jacket, jeans — Sam Ulan strapped on a blue swimming cap and climbed onto what looked like an arcade space shuttle. If he looked like a trapped polar bear inside the contraption, he was doing it for a good reason. He was getting his body fat measured. "I'm getting on in years and I'm trying to reach an ideal weight to avoid health problems," he said.